Cluster of end of July commitments signal what is sure to be a busy August

As I mentioned the other day on our facebook page, August is always an exciting month for player commitments. And for some reason, these commitments tend to come in waves.

One Monday, I announced on our facebook page the commitment of Alex Paulus, one of our outstanding 2013 attackmen from Morse HS (ME), whose chose Denison University from a list of options that included Bates, Hamilton & Gettysburg. Alex joins standout defenseman Tommy Harrison (Rivers/Kimball Union), who has been named both freshman of the year at Denison, and, more recently, Captain for the upcoming season as a junior (exceedingly rare in the college game), and defenseman/LSM John Reinhardt (Berwick), who'll be joining the Big Red as a freshman this fall. Given the number of players in the 2013 class being aggressively pursued by Denison, Alex may very well not be the last to commit to Mike C's program.

Then yesterday, I found out about two more 2013's (actually one 2012...I'll explain) who made their commitments.

I'll start with the easy one: the 2013. Belmont Hill face-off man Austin Frank became our first NESCAC commitment of the year, choosing to play for Coach Domingos at Colby. Austin considered several other schools in the NESCAC, as well as a few schools outside the NESCAC including but not limited to Denison & Colorado College. Austin will join the following list of former Clam turned Mules: senior standout attackman John Jennings (St. Johns Prep), and sophomores Peter Willauer (Duxbury HS), Brendan McNeill (Rivers), Peter Reiley (Deerfield) and Derek Youngman (Thayer). As was the case with Denison, Austin is not the only 2013 Clam that Colby is pursuing, and he certainly may not be the last Mule-to-be in this year's rising senior Clam crop.

Now to the somewhat complex one, belonging to our other face-off man in the 2013 class, Elliott Burr. After receiving offers from UVM and Penn State last summer, and interest from a large list of schools, Elliott and his family decided a post-graduate year at Phillips Andover would better his chances at this top college picks. Everything was moving in this direction until NIKE/3D Blue Chip this summer, where apparently Elliott was dominant at the face-off X. Syracuse, a program that struggled at the face-off X last year, noticed. And Coach Lelan Rogers decided he wanted not only wanted Elliot, but wanted him now. And after much thought, Elliott decided he was ready to jump into the fray for the Orangemen immediately. Elliot will join former Clam juniors Hakeem Lecky (Duxbury HS/Avon Old Farms) and John Fitzgerald (Rivers/Hingham). I can say with pretty good certainty that Elliott will be the last 2012 Clam to go to Syracuse, and likely the last 2013. However, the Orangemen do have eyes for a couple of our '14's, so we'll see how that plays out.

Our congratulations go out to Alex, Austin & Elliott. Keep checking our facebook page for more immediate Clam commitment updates, or back here when they've clustered enough to form a bunch...